II. Civic Education: Political or Comprehensive?
3. Cultivating Reasonableness in Political Liberal Civic Education
3.3. Restrictive Reasonableness and Civic Education: the Legitimacy Criterion
In addition to using reasonableness to delineate the scope of reasonable pluralism, Rawls also uses the qualification of reasonableness in a more restricted sense that is tied to the legitimacy of political principles. In this section, I will argue that the use of reasonableness for liberal legitimacy is tied to a different part of the political liberal project and, for the purposes of PLCE, should not be bundled with the other two criteria of reasonableness.
The third criterion of reasonableness holds that one accepts the consequences of the burdens of judgment by using public reason in directing the legitimate exercise of political power. Failure to use public reason constitutes a failure to offer a legitimate justification of coercive power and, for Rawls, appears to be a failure to accept “the consequences” of the burdens of judgment. Note the similarities between the liberal principle of legitimacy and the legitimacy criterion of reasonableness. According to Rawls, the “second basic aspect of reasonableness” is “the willingness to recognize the burdens of judgment and to accept their consequences for the use of public reason in directing the legitimate exercise of political power in a constitutional regime” (PL, 54). I think accepting the burdens of judgment can be separated from accepting the use of public reason.83 I have called the latter the legitimacy criterion of reasonableness because of its resemblance to the liberal principle of legitimacy. Recall that the liberal principle of legitimacy holds that, “our exercise of political power is proper and hence justifiable only when it is exercised in accordance with a constitution the essentials of which all citizens
82 History, literature, and philosophy are also subjects that could expose children to the burdens of judgment and the fact of reasonable pluralism. By learning the many ways in which beliefs change over time and vary according to our culture and circumstance, children can start to learn that differences in beliefs are expected given the diversity of people’s experiences. Likewise, reading the classics of literature exposes children to alternate ways of living by people who have clear reasons for their actions, aim to live a good life, and, often, a desire to be moral. The disagreements between philosophers in any era are another good source of learning that smart people who aim explicitly at discovering what is just or good,
nevertheless reasonably disagree with each other. These kinds of disagreements seem to motivate Rawls’s initial turn to political liberalism (PL, xiii-lx).
83 I defend the bifurcation of Rawls’s second basic aspect of reasonableness in Chapter 3. Here, I focus on why the separation is important in the context of civic education.
may reasonably be expected to endorse in the light of principles and ideals acceptable to them as reasonable and rational” (PL, 217). The basic idea is that the only way for political power to be legitimate is for the basic principles and laws governing our political system to be grounded in terms that all reasonable citizens can be expected to endorse as relevant reasons governing the specific actions or laws.
Educating children to embrace the legitimacy criterion of reasonableness requires teaching all children to use public reason when debating matters of basic justice or constitutional essentials. To meet the legitimacy criterion of reasonableness, children would need to be taught that appealing to the whole truth of one's comprehensive doctrine, when that truth is reasonably contestable, is disrespectful and a way of illegitimately imposing one’s own comprehensive doctrine on others. Rawls explains that
“insistence on the whole truth in politics [is] incompatible with democratic citizenship and the idea of legitimate law” because political legitimacy is “based on the criterion of reciprocity,” which holds that the reasons offered must be reasonably acceptable to our fellow reasonable citizens whose comprehensive doctrines may conflict with our own (IPRR, 446-47). Note that this is far more restrictive than simply requiring that children respect others as free and equal citizens, part of which requires accepting the idea that people could disagree with someone without being immoral or unintelligent (i.e., embracing only the respect and burdens of judgment criteria). The legitimacy criterion also teaches children that the best way to respect reasonable disagreement in political life is the use of public reason.
However, the liberal principle of legitimacy is a distinctive solution to the question of what could make the coercive power of the government legitimate. It is a substantive conclusion with which many who satisfy the respect criterion of reasonableness could disagree. I think this criterion is far too restrictive if included in PLCE as a necessary criterion for reasonableness. While the liberal principle of legitimacy is arguably the best way to respect reasonable disagreement, it is not the only way. Philosophical anarchists, liberal perfectionists, and libertarians all disagree with political liberalism’s solution to the problem of legitimacy. Nevertheless, all agree that people should be respected as free and equal. The differences arise in how political power can best respect the freedom and equality of all persons. For example, philosophical anarchists would teach children that there is no such thing as a moral right to be obeyed precisely because it is incompatible with the freedom and equality of all people. This seems like a perfectly acceptable justification of the rejection of legitimate authority and one that is not based on immoral or unintelligent considerations. The anarchist justifies her rejection of legitimate authority by appealing to the very same respect criterion of reasonableness, which holds that citizens should be respected as free and equal moral persons, that lies at the heart of Rawls’s conception of reasonable persons.84 Thus, according to Rawls, the anarchist would qualify in one sense as a reasonable person because she respects the important moral respect threshold for being reasonable. However, using the restrictive sense of reasonableness, defined in terms of the legitimacy criterion—which the anarchist rejects—she would be unreasonable. But note that we are using two different senses of
84 Recall that in explaining reasonable disagreement, Rawls defines reasonable persons by referencing the respect criterion of reasonableness (PL, 55).
reasonableness. The question is whether legitimacy-reasonableness should be included as a necessary component of reasonableness for the purposes of PLCE.
I have argued (in 3.1 and 3.2) that the respect criterion and burdens of judgment criterion are necessary components of the moral qualification of reasonableness and should be included in PLCE. I have also argued that these two criteria preserve the inclusive scope of reasonableness that is tied to Rawls’s conception of reasonable pluralism. But if the legitimacy criterion is also a necessary component of reasonableness, then reasonableness becomes far more restrictive—only those who embrace Rawls’s liberal principle of legitimacy would qualify as reasonable. I do not think that this restrictive conception of reasonableness is appropriate for PLCE.
Civic education that cultivates respect for freedom and equality seems justifiable, even if it has a disproportionate effect on certain comprehensive doctrines. Despite the political liberal’s goal of justifying political power in a way that respects deep disagreement between different comprehensive moral doctrines, the political liberal need not tolerate those views that threaten the very conditions of freedom and equality in a society. But I think it is a further step to argue that those who fail to embrace political liberalism’s liberal principle of legitimacy pose the same kind of threat to society.
Provided that people embrace the respect criterion of reasonableness, they have recognized the moral status of their fellow citizens as free and equal. However, there are many different ways that political theories justify or reject the legitimacy of coercive power, including many which also embrace the moral freedom and equality of citizens.
As such, justifying the inclusion of the legitimacy criterion as a necessary component of reasonableness in civic education becomes far more difficult. Remember, the challenge for Rawls is to demonstrate that the disproportionate effects on comprehensive doctrines that have difficulty surviving under political liberalism are justifiable. The justification seems far more straightforward if all that is required in order to cultivate reasonableness in children is a civic education designed to teach respect for the freedom and equality of all people and that disagreement does not mean our opponents are immoral fools. The justification for teaching children one answer to how coercive power could be legitimate seems like a much taller order. It may very well be defensible, but it is a far more restrictive understanding of reasonableness. Thus, the legitimacy criterion should not be a required component of PLCE.
If, in order to be reasonable, children should learn to embrace a particular solution to the problem of legitimacy, a political liberal civic education would be as demanding as a comprehensive liberal civic education. This would succumb to the worry Rawls articulated at the outset—that a political liberal civic education would be in effect if not in intention to educate children for comprehensive liberalism (PL, 199). Even if the justifications for these two forms of education diverge, as Macedo and Costa have emphasized, the practical results would be similarly restrictive (Macedo 1995; Costa 2004).85
85 What I have called the legitimacy criterion has not been the focus of arguments about civic education.
But Rawls’s second aspect of reasonableness, taken as a whole to include the recognition of the burdens of judgment and their consequences, have lead many to conclude that political and comprehensive liberalism converge.
Furthermore, an education designed to teach children the liberal principle of legitimacy as a necessary component of reasonableness seems particularly vulnerable to Brighouse’s famous challenge to liberal civic education. Recall that within the family of liberal theories of legitimacy,86 many require the “free and unmanipulated assent of reasonable citizens” (Brighouse 1998, 726). Brighouse argues that civic education tends to condition and manipulate the assent because civic education is specifically designed to promote “loyalties, habits, and beliefs conducive to” the continued stability of the state (Brighouse 1998, 726).87 Thus, Brighouse argues, civic education seems to undermine the very conditions for liberal legitimacy.
Brighouse’s challenge can be taken to apply to a Rawlsian who requires that civic education promote a particular solution to the problem of legitimacy as a part of educating children to become reasonable citizens.88 If one is educated from early childhood that there is one clear solution to the question of what, if anything, could make the coercive power of the state legitimate, this may tilt the scale in favor of a citizenry that is less likely to critique the government’s coercive use of power. In all liberal theories of legitimacy, the acceptability of the government to citizens is important.89 However, if education promotes the acceptance of the legitimacy criterion of reasonableness, then the extent to which legitimacy is freely obtained is threatened. Any education that teaches only one acceptable solution to the problem of legitimacy looks worrisome, because there are many competing theories of legitimacy that all claim to be the best way to respect the freedom and equality of citizens, including philosophical anarchism, which rejects the possibility of legitimate authority. Furthermore, including one model of legitimacy in children’s civic education is particularly troublesome since civic education is monitored by the very government that seeks to establish its own legitimacy. This could be understood as an instance of the state’s coercive use of force to encourage a shared understanding of the best way in which to respect citizens as free and equal.90
Education aimed at cultivating only one acceptable approach to establishing the legitimacy of the government demands more than may be justifiably required by a state that seeks to be broadly inclusive. Note the restrictions that accompany the inclusion of the legitimacy criterion of reasonableness in civic education. Only those who embrace Rawls’s liberal principle of legitimacy would qualify as reasonable citizens. This would exclude many more citizens as unreasonable. According to Rawls, using public reason when debating matters of basic justice and constitutional essentials is the best way to respect our fellow citizens as free and equal in the context of reasonable pluralism;
86 There are a number of different approaches to liberal legitimacy beyond Rawls’s own favored approach articulated in Political Liberalism.
87 Brighouse argued against Galston and Gutmann’s proposals for civic education and ultimately concluded that more robust training for autonomy and critical scrutiny could mitigate the worries. Brighouse 1998, 734-736, 739. He argues, “civic education can meet the requirements imposed by legitimacy only if tied to autonomy-facilitating education, which in turn can be justified on independent grounds” (Brighouse 1998, 744).
88 Callan 2000 responds to Brighouse’s challenge but does so in a way that leans heavy towards
comprehensive liberalism. Indeed, the distinction between political and comprehensive liberalism is not at stake in Callan’s 2000 essay.
89 Differences between liberal theories of legitimacy often lie in articulating how this acceptability is obtained (hypothetical consent, normative consent, explicit voluntary consent, etc.).
90 This looks suspiciously similar to what, in other contexts, Rawls calls “the fact of oppression” (PL, 37).
however, it is not the only way. It is far too restrictive and, as such, has drawn the most vehement criticisms of Rawlsian reasonableness.
Beyond being restrictive, the legitimacy criterion is indefensible as a component of the civic education of children. Following Brighouse, I worry that some forms of civic education could undermine the legitimacy of a government. In particular, if children are taught that there is only one appropriate response to the fact of reasonable pluralism, this may undermine future political debate about criterion for legitimacy. While debate about legitimacy is not foreclosed by including the legitimacy criterion of reasonableness in the civic education of children—it would be significantly curtailed when compared to civic education that teaches children only the respect and burdens of judgment criteria of reasonableness. If PLCE is modeled after the inclusive conception of reasonableness that does not consider embracing Rawls’s liberal principle of legitimacy a necessary component of qualifying as reasonable, this opens the door to an education that presents a variety of theories of legitimacy. Children would learn that there is not only reasonable disagreement about conceptions of the good, but also reasonable disagreement about the best way to respect the freedom and equality of citizens in the context of reasonable pluralism.
In addition, including the legitimacy criterion as a part of PLCE will distract from some of its more significant educational aspirations. Since Rawls’s liberal principle of legitimacy is widely contested, even among liberals, including the legitimacy criterion as a necessary part of PLCE could lead many to reject PLCE entirely. In contrast, if PLCE teaches that the first two criteria are the only necessary qualifications to be considered reasonable, this is both widely inclusive and could establish an important basis for securing the rights of all citizens.
Focusing on respect for others as free and equal moral persons as the primary moral qualification to qualify as reasonable highlights the key moral threshold that sets the limits for which disagreements are reasonable and which are unreasonable. If reasonable disagreements are disagreements among reasonable persons, they are disagreements among persons who have met this minimum moral threshold. Beyond this, there are many conceptions of the good that persons will pursue, given freedom of conscience and freedom of thought. Furthermore, as I have suggested in this section, there are also many different political proposals that explicitly aim to respect people’s freedom and equality. Teaching children these goals in PLCE could set the stage for a diverse citizenry that, by learning to respect even those with whom one disagrees as reasonable, may be less vulnerable to the extreme group polarization that characterizes contemporary politics in which those who disagree on important matters are deemed immoral or unintelligent.